A few weeks later the crash risk was up to 98%. Then a dramatic preholiday uptick in investor sentiment. America’s collective unconscious tired of negativity after a Halloween headline: “Economic guillotine dead ahead.” A week later, 2014 became the “Year of the Boom.” Bank of America’s chief strategist screamed: “Bet on the bulls now.” The Great Gatsby spirit was celebrating the holidays: “Even old grumpy Dr. Doom, celeb economist Nouriel Roubini, began humming a happy tune all over television: “A global recovery is going to occur, get into equities.”

What really happened? Fed politics. Short-term, Larry Summers withdrew as a candidate for the Fed chairman’s job. Dark cloud lifted as Janet Yellen become the pick. Wall Street cheered, Bernanke’s easy-money printing presses would not screw up their year-end bonuses. Plus Main Street was mentally exhausted, tired of the bad news, relentless political drama. We needed a holiday break.

By Thanksgiving, “irrational exuberance” was accelerating in full holiday tilt: Headline: “Shiller’s hot P/Es will power a roaring bull till 2017,” and 2014 got branded the “Katy Perry market!” A week later, a Thanksgiving headline added: “10 reasons to be a bull in 2014.”

But long term? What’s really ahead for America in 2014? Warning, something bigger is hiding in the deep shadows of our collective brain. At a recent lunch with an old friend, one of the world’s more successful commodities traders, he confirmed that “something” was dead ahead. But not just another brief statistical shift in sentiment. Not a medium-term volatility shift. America, the world, are in a historic transition, a paradigm shift, a mysterious upheaval that few will grasp till it moves further along.

Dark road dead ahead: Yellen, Gross, GOP, off-center, all tested

More losses? How bad? Worse than 2000 and 2008? Yes. Wall Street, Main Street, Washington, the global economy, will all be knocked off-center. Traders are focusing on St. Patrick’s Day for guidance, below S&P 1,850, Dow 16,400, with a downturn accelerating after a macroeconomic news event in mid-April. For Wall Street’s short-term thinkers, all easy to dismiss, they make money on the action, up or down.

But this trader’s track-record says listen. His predictions fit our polls. The underlying reason is simple: Yellen’s policy is to keep printing cheap money. Remember last summer: Bernanke still in power? Wall Street feared Summers would hurt bonuses. Gross screamed, “QE must end.” Yet market kept rising. Pimco lost. Gross was off-center. His partner Mohamed El Erian left. Gross’s confusion was just one of many signs of a fundamentally flawed monetary policy dating back to Greenspan and Reaganomics

What’s ahead is even bigger: A black swan. Unpredictable. A macroeconomic catastrophe in China, Russia? Something politically dramatic, like the fall of the Berlin Wall? Oil wars? What do you see? Dismiss? Comment: Will 2014 continue the bull? Correction? Bear? The “big one” predicted for last year? Finally coming? Our poll resembles the one we reported on from 2004 to 2008, summarized shortly before the collapse.

To help you, here are highlights we reported over the last year. Read, comment, what do you see ahead? A critical mass of macroeconomic triggers that could accelerate a downturn, recession, something we’ll deny, never hear, till too late:

Bill Gross: Credit supernova dead ahead

In February, Gross warned of a “credit supernova.” Pimco has $2 trillion at risk if the Fed’s cheap money explodes, brings down the economy. Worse, “investment banking, which only a decade ago promoted small-business development ... now is dominated by leveraged speculation and the Ponzi finance.”

Gary Shilling: Grand shocker will trigger new crash

Long-time Forbes columnist again warned of a “grand disconnect” driving “stocks around the world while the zeal for yield, amidst low interest rates ... suggests an expanding bubble.” Shilling saw a black swan, a grand “shocker” coming.

David Stockman: Get out of market now and hide in cash

“Stop the Fed from micromanaging the economy,” said Stockman in March: “No more cheap money, debt buybacks, investing in private companies.” Restore “Fed’s original mission: to provide liquidity in times of crisis ... get out of the markets, hide out in cash.”

Charlie Ellis: Advice to long-term investors, don’t own bonds

Back in April the author of the classic “Winning the Loser’s Game: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing” said: “The best piece of advice I could give long-term investors today is don’t own bonds. And if you do own them ... move out of them.”

Bill Gross: Warning, the 30-year bond bull market ended on April 29

Bonds started dropping in late 2012. Gross made it official here, the 30-year bull market was dead. His Pimco firm had capitalized on the run, build a $2 trillion portfolio. Losing.

Societe Generale strategist: ‘Bubble with no name’ near popping

In April bank strategist Kit Juckes warns we’re all trapped in the fourth megabubble fueled by the Fed since the rise of conservative economics, the “Bubble With No Name Yet.” And “it’s close to popping, like the Asian, dot-com and credit crashes.”

Peter Schiff: Doubles down on his doomsday prediction

Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, author of “The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy,” is “not backing away from doomsday predictions” wrote MarketWatch’s Greg Robb. A week earlier Schiff warned: “I am 100% confident the crisis that we’re going to will be much worse than the one we had in 2008.” Yes, 100%.

Terry Burnham: Lizard brains, denial, devastating decline

Robert Shiller: Bubbles forever, irrational exuberance is back

Millions of investors were searching for the elusive “new, new normal,” something better than today’s heart-pounding uncertainties. In July Shiller’s “Bubbles Forever” warned that “irrational exuberance” was back in America.

Intraday Data provided by SIX Financial Information and subject to terms of use.
Historical and current end-of-day data provided by SIX Financial Information.
All quotes are in local exchange time. Real-time last sale data for U.S. stock quotes reflect trades reported through Nasdaq only.
Intraday data delayed at least 15 minutes or per exchange requirements.